The EnTrak system : supporting energy action planning via the Internet

Recent energy policy is designed to foster better energy efficiency and assist with the deployment of clean energy systems, especially those derived from renewable energy sources. To attain the envisaged targets will require action at all levels and effective collaboration between disparate groups (e.g. policy makers, developers, local authorities, energy managers, building designers, consumers etc) impacting on energy and environment. To support such actions and collaborations, an Internet-enabled energy information system called 'EnTrak' was developed. The aim was to provide decision-makers with information on energy demands, supplies and impacts by sector, time, fuel type and so on, in support of energy action plan formulation and enactment. This paper describes the system structure and capabilities of the EnTrak system

Constrained tGAP for generalisation between scales: the case of Dutch topographic data

This article presents the results of integrating large- and medium-scale data into a unified data structure. This structure can be used as a single non-redundant representation for the input data, which can be queried at any arbitrary scale between the source scales. The solution is based on the constrained topological Generalized Area Partition (tGAP), which stores the results of a generalization process applied to the large-scale dataset, and is controlled by the objects of the medium-scale dataset, which act as constraints on the large-scale objects. The result contains the accurate geometry of the large-scale objects enriched with the generalization knowledge of the medium-scale data, stored as references in the constraint tGAP structure. The advantage of this constrained approach over the original tGAP is the higher quality of the aggregated maps. The idea was implemented with real topographic datasets from The Netherlands for the large- (1:1000) and medium-scale (1:10,000) data. The approach is expected to be equally valid for any categorical map and for other scales as well

Monitoring land use changes using geo-information : possibilities, methods and adapted techniques

Monitoring land use with geographical databases is widely used in decision-making. This report presents the possibilities, methods and adapted techniques using geo-information in monitoring land use changes. The municipality of Soest was chosen as study area and three national land use databases, viz. Top10Vector, CBS land use statistics and LGN, were used. The restrictions of geo-information for monitoring land use changes are indicated. New methods and adapted techniques improve the monitoring result considerably. Providers of geo-information, however, should coordinate on update frequencies, semantic content and spatial resolution to allow better possibilities of monitoring land use by combining data sets

IWMI Strategic plan 2004-2008

Strategy planning / Research institutes / Assessment / Research priorities / Research projects / River basins / Water management / Irrigated farming / Land management / Environmental effects / Financial planning

A statistical approach for estimating mean maximum urban temperature excess.

Munkánkban a városi hősziget (UHI) maximális napi kifejlődését vizsgáltuk Szegeden, a beépítettségi paraméterek függvényében. A hőmérsékleti adatok valamint a beépítettségi arány, a vízfelszín-arány, az égbolt láthatósági index és az épületmagasság, valamint ezek területi kiterjesztései közötti kapcsolatot statisztikus modellezéssel határoztuk meg. A kapott modell-egyenleteket mindkét félévre (fűtési és nem-fűtési) többváltozós lineáris regresszió segítségével állapítottuk meg. Az eredményekből világosan látszik, hogy szignifikáns kapcsolat mutatható ki a maximális UHI területi eloszlása és a beépítettségi paraméterek között, ami azt jelenti, hogy e tényezők fontos szerepet jatszanak a városi hőmérsékleti többlet területi eloszlásának kialakításában. A városi paraméterek közül az égbolt láthatósági index és az épületmagasság a leginkább meghatározó tényező, ami összhangban van a városi felszín energia-egyenlegével. | Investigations concentrated on the urban heat island (UHI) in its strongest development during the diurnal cycle in Szeged, Hungary. Task includes development of statistical models in the heating and non-heating seasons using urban surface parameters (built-up and water surface ratios, sky view factor, building height) and their areal extensions. Model equations were determined by means of stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. As the results show, there is a clear connection between the spatial distribution of the UHI and the examined parameters, so these parameters play an important role in the evolution of the UHI intensity field. Among them the sky view factor and the building height are the most determining factors, which are in line with the urban surface energy balance

Big Data and Reliability Applications: The Complexity Dimension

Big data features not only large volumes of data but also data with complicated structures. Complexity imposes unique challenges in big data analytics. Meeker and Hong (2014, Quality Engineering, pp. 102-116) provided an extensive discussion of the opportunities and challenges in big data and reliability, and described engineering systems that can generate big data that can be used in reliability analysis. Meeker and Hong (2014) focused on large scale system operating and environment data (i.e., high-frequency multivariate time series data), and provided examples on how to link such data as covariates to traditional reliability responses such as time to failure, time to recurrence of events, and degradation measurements. This paper intends to extend that discussion by focusing on how to use data with complicated structures to do reliability analysis. Such data types include high-dimensional sensor data, functional curve data, and image streams. We first provide a review of recent development in those directions, and then we provide a discussion on how analytical methods can be developed to tackle the challenging aspects that arise from the complexity feature of big data in reliability applications. The use of modern statistical methods such as variable selection, functional data analysis, scalar-on-image regression, spatio-temporal data models, and machine learning techniques will also be discussed.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure